This paper discusses an ongoing revolution in linguistics, the main issues of which are (1) the interplay between the verbal and non-verbal in the mental process of linguistic production and perception and (2) the acquisition of the relevant abilities with regard to the development of cognitive abilities. The authors first reviewed the research history in linguistics. Linguistics has undergone in this century three major changes, which are typified by shifts of research interest. The shifts of interest are, actually, shifts of perspectives that grow out of the academic environment. The exhaustion of the comparative linguistics and the advent of semiotics were the background of Ferdinand de Saussure's structural system of language. Had the behaviourists not adopted those absurd 'scientific' ways to research language and linguistic behaviours and excluded mind from their research, Noam Chomsky's transformational generative grammar would not have attracted so many enthusiastic linguists and psychologists. These are the two main shifts of perspectives in linguistics in this century.
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